Forget about Brexit - what if we Remain?

Miss_Samantha

anotheruser wrote: »

That may be, but look at the size of their countries to ours...

Ah the point went straight above your head...

The point is that if there was no freedom of movement and tough migration control then the EU citizens who now live here would not be here, but equally the British citizens who live there who be here instead.

So any housing issues would still exist because the root cause is in fact that we do not build enough.

hazyjo

Unfortunately can't open the link but I would take anything the BBC says with a pinch of salt seeing as they're obviously going to be hugely biased in favour of remaining...


Jx

Miss_Samantha

hazyjo wrote: »

Unfortunately can't open the link but I would take anything the BBC says with a pinch of salt seeing as they're obviously going to be hugely biased in favour of remaining...

It's about a well-defined, public number that everyone knows exactly about except the Leave campaign. How can you take it with a 'pinch of salt'?

Jeez...

hazyjo

Miss_Samantha wrote: »

It's about a well-defined, public number that everyone knows exactly about except the Leave campaign. How can you take it with a 'pinch of salt'?

Jeez...

Because you'll probably find conflicting information on the website of a Leave supporter...


'Facts' can be manipulated.


Jx

Miss_Samantha

Please stop... I'm losing faith in humankind.

mrginge

Miss_Samantha wrote: »

The same causes lead to the same effects. Immigration will continue to be good for the economy (but as I wrote there are other aspects you can look at).
One key aspect of immigration to keep in mind is that people come here to fill jobs. The economy goes well and create jobs, this attracts more people, this makes the economy expands further, and so on.
Just look at statistics, immigration dips when the economy dips. People do not come if they know that there aren't any jobs.

People come here because of opportunity.

Opportunity is a factor of things like job availability, language, ease of access, social provision, long term prospects etc.
All of which has to be compared to the same factors in a person's home country.

There are plenty of jobs here so why do some people choose to go to Australia?

Cameron has *tried* to affect one of those - out of work benefits (temporarily of course by giving up various other powers but we'll gloss over that) but he cannot affect the other , more critical factors.
He can't limit availability of jobs to those people. He can try to place language requirements but many foreign people speak better English than us anyway :rotfl:
He can't limit access to health services.
He can't stop people turning up in the first place.

If our economy shrinks, then it has to shrink by a lot more than the few percent the treasury is crowing about before it actually outweighs all the other pull factors that help to drag people here.

If we look at our requirements and decide that the country needs and can support net migration of 1m per year then that's fine in my book.
The problem is that as a country we -
A. Don't make that assessment.
B. Couldn't enforce it anyway.

Jhoney_2

The UK will always be a magnet for immigration as £ is worth more than the EURO.

The concerns of those on both sides of the debate should be addressed going forward. They are real concerns.

All the mudslinging and sensationalism will not fix things and ALL the concerns are valid imo.

As a priority I think we need political action to STOP cutting NHS funding, anyone under e.g 25 who are NEET, should be assigned and trained in a starter type job as required in their area ( I know, I sound like a dictor but you get my drift), secure the border from a security POV, not an immigration one, and build more homes, school etc PDQ!

I appreciate that that's an expensive ask, but rolling that out over sucessive gov't would be far more productive than anything else on the table currently. I'm not pretending it would be easy either.

In short, the understandable issues and concerns should become the manifesto and post vote, they should jolly well get on with doing something about them - for everybody.

Stay = meb and an economic hit
Leave = ? and an economic hit

Let's fix/reinforce the blinking economy!

dirty_magic

Miss_Samantha wrote: »

Ah the point went straight above your head...

The point is that if there was no freedom of movement and tough migration control then the EU citizens who now live here would not be here, but equally the British citizens who live there who be here instead.

So any housing issues would still exist because the root cause is in fact that we do not build enough.

You're making it sound like there are as many people are leaving as there are coming. Net migration is going up. Net migration figures for EU citizens were 184,000 as at December 2015. If you include non-EU citizens it was 333,000. There is no way that these numbers are sustainable if it continues.

I don't think anything will change if we leave because we'll end up agreeing free movement as part of a trade deal, and I do think that for most people in the leave camp it's a knee jerk reaction to immigration, but surely the fact that roughly 50% of the population are worried about it shows that it's time to do something about it?

Kynthia

societys_child wrote: »

If you really believe they'll stop selling to us, you're on another planet.

Cut off their nose to spite their face? No chance.

£350 million a day club membership already hurts us and that figure is set to rocket if we remain.

The EU buys 44% of our exports and we only buy 5% of theirs. When tariffs are imposed it will hurt us a lot more than it will hurt them. We need them more as a customer than they need us, and when that 5% of good becomes more expensive it will hit ordinary householders and when less people buy our more expensive goods our business will shed jobs.

Money_saving_maniac

Kynthia wrote: »

The EU buys 44% of our exports and we only buy 5% of theirs. When tariffs are imposed it will hurt us a lot more than it will hurt them. We need them more as a customer than they need us, and when that 5% of good becomes more expensive it will hit ordinary householders and when less people buy our more expensive goods our business will shed jobs.

Er...no. Not according to the OEC.

The top export destinations of the United Kingdom are the United States ($51B), Germany ($46.5B), the Netherlands ($34.2B), Switzerland ($33.6B) and France ($27B).

The top import origins are Germany ($100B), China ($62.7B), the Netherlands ($50.7B), the United States ($44.4B) and France ($41.5B).

So as you can see, Germany, the Netherlands and France all export more to us than we do to them. Therefore there will not be reciprocal trade barriers imposed if we leave.

There is a saying that there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. The trouble with using percentages is that they fall into the statistics camp. Statistics are easily manipulated. When you look at the actual numbers the truth is clear.

The other countries in the EU, the trade is unimportant either way.

If you're interested, here's the linkie
http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/gbr/